1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to automatic speech recognition using Markov processes on multidimensional curves.
2. Description of Related Art
Variations in speaking rate currently present a serious challenge for automatic speech recognition (ASR). It is widely observed, for example, that fast speech is more prone to recognition errors than slow speech.
A related effect, occurring at the phoneme level, is that consonants are more frequently misinterpreted than vowels. Consonants have short-lived, non-stationary acoustic signatures, while vowels have the opposite, namely stationary acoustic signatures. Thus, at the phoneme level, the error rate for recognition of consonants may be significantly increased as a consequence of locally fast speech.